Sitting side by side on a park bench, Madeleine, with moist eyes, confides to her neighbor Paul her financial anxieties, describing to him how she has been struggling to make ends meet for several months. Touched by his despair, with a tear in his eye and his head bowed, Paul feels his heart tighten, Madeleine’s worries resonate within him like a sad song, amplifying his own fears.
Paul is clearly vulnerable to emotional contagion: “Just as some individuals are at greater risk of catching a respiratory virus by being in contact with someone infected, others tend to “catch” the emotions of people who surround them more easily,” explains Marie-Josée Richer, who has conducted doctoral work on the mental health of seniors and their vulnerability to emotional contagion.
“A person vulnerable to emotional contagion will be particularly sensitive to the emotions of others,” explains Pierrich Plusquellec, professor at the School of Psychoeducation at the University of Montreal. This adaptive phenomenon manifests itself unconsciously through the mimicry of facial expressions, gestures and postures, leading to emotional convergence. For example, this person will feel physically tense when seeing angry people on television, will have tears in their eyes if someone cries in front of them, will have better morale only by being in contact with a happy person.
The professor, who is also co-director of the Center for the Study of Human Stress, adds: “When we measure vulnerability to emotional contagion, we look at a range of emotions, including joy, love, anger and fear. Emotional contagion plays an essential role in a society, because it is the basis of empathy.”
However, this vulnerability is double-edged, because it seems to be greater among seniors suffering from psychological distress. This is what emerges from the study carried out by Marie-Josée Richer, co-directed by Pierrich Plusquellec and psychology professor Sébastien Grenier, and the results of which have just been published in the scientific journal PLOS Mental Health.
“This research is part of my work on the psychological resilience of older people,” emphasizes the researcher, who holds a position as a psychoeducator at the University Institute of Geriatrics of Montreal. The main objective was to better understand the factors that influence this resilience in seniors in order to prevent psychological distress. The latter can have very harmful effects on their overall health, such as increased risks of cardiovascular disease, cognitive decline and premature mortality.
Researchers have observed that vulnerability to emotional contagion varies from one individual to another, like personality traits. This vulnerability, according to them, is still often neglected in studies on mental health, especially among older people.
Background of the study
The researchers worked with a group of 170 adults aged 55 and over facing various types of adversity. Adversity refers to the challenges, obstacles or difficult conditions that an individual may face, such as bereavement, conflict with a loved one (explicit adversity) or even vulnerability to emotional contagion (implicit adversity).
The study was part of a larger project evaluating the effects of a program on the management of stress and its contagion. The study subjects had to live in a metropolitan region of Quebec, speak French and be interested in group stress management techniques. The researchers wanted to include a broad range of people, without excluding those with varying levels of psychological distress or physical limitations, to better represent the general population.
Data was collected between September 2018 and September 2019 from 170 seniors living in a retirement residence or benefiting from services from community organizations. A majority of women (85.4%) made up the sample of participants, whose average age was 76.1 years, the subjects being between 56 and 96 years old. Most of the people participating were born in Canada and lived alone.
Psychological distress: from anxiety to anxious depression
The study subjects were classified into three groups according to their level of psychological distress. Nearly 45% were in the anxiety profile, showing clinical and subclinical symptoms of anxiety only. Approximately 20% were in the anxious depression profile, with clinical and subclinical symptoms of both anxiety and depression. The last group included individuals who did not present significant symptoms of anxiety or depression, corresponding to a profile without clinical distress.
According to Sébastien Grenier, “we call “subclinical” and “clinical” symptoms of varying intensity that can be significant enough to disrupt the daily life of an elderly person. Symptoms are clinical when they meet the criteria for a formal diagnosis of anxiety or depression. For example, a person with clinical anxiety might have frequent panic attacks, difficulty leaving the house, and become socially isolated. A person with subclinical anxiety would have no diagnosis of this disorder, but may suffer from somatization and worry that interferes with daily functioning.
The emotional contagion vulnerability index
To analyze psychological distress, researchers took into account various factors such as gender, age, income, cohabitation, level of autonomy, availability and satisfaction with the social network as well as strategies adaptation to adversity. They added a vulnerability index to emotional contagion to measure this characteristic.
The results show that seniors most vulnerable to emotional contagion were 8.5 to 10 times more likely to present anxiety or anxiety-depressive symptoms compared to those who were less vulnerable.
This was independent of other factors such as level of social support or coping strategies. This is the first time that this susceptibility to emotional contagion has been studied as a determining factor in psychological distress in the elderly.
Retirement homes: the importance of staying informed
The study was unable to establish a causal link between vulnerability to emotional contagion and psychological distress. However, it highlights the importance of taking into account both explicit adversity and implicit adversity to target seniors at risk of psychological distress. In community living environments, such as residences for the elderly or close care situations, the risks of emotional contagion must be considered proactively.
Researchers recommend designing tools to help individuals most vulnerable to emotional contagion better manage this aspect of their lives. This could strengthen their psychological resilience and help improve their quality of life. They also suggest that future research examine the moderating factors between vulnerability to emotional contagion and psychological distress in older adults to better understand this phenomenon and its impact on mental health.
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